Author's Notes:
It's a long one today everyone. Hope you enjoy. Thanks to Corona Pax for writing and editing a lot of this. Also thanks to JFHoll. We let her loose in our documents to help out with a certain character and I love how it turned out. Hope you do too!
Chapter 131
Birthday
The ghosts knew they were on thin fucking ice, Ginny still humiliated and the other kids reeling from what Ruby put them through.
Ruby stared them down as they awkwardly stood in the middle of the room, not looking at the very angry bots. Even the Toys weren't keen on talking to them, not after everything.
Everyone was still in various states of repairs.
The kids had just appeared in the middle of the room, obviously wanting something, but hadn't said anything. They just glared at each other silently demanding someone speak up.
"What?" Ruby growled with her patience run out.
Felix opened his mouth to snap, but Cheryl kicked him in the shin and he cried out.
Ruby glared, refusing to show confusion at their weird behavior. "Hedy's going to be late," she said shortly, figuring they were wondering where the mechanic was. It was technically still an hour until shift, but both she and Hedy had got into the habit of coming pretty early if they got enough sleep beforehand. The place closed at nine with the last day shift cleaning up until ten, then there were usually two hours before Hedy and Ruby were supposed to show up. Sometimes the girls caught the day shift leaving when they arrived early and exchanged "hellos" and "see ya tomorrows."
"We know," Fredrick mumbled.
"Then what do you brats want?" Ruby demanded.
Ginny pushed Fredrick forward and he shot her a vicious glare. He glanced back at Ruby.
"...Today's Hedy's birthday," he blurted out before he could think about it too long.
Ruby blinked, genuinely caught off guard.
"It is?" Mangle snapped with a mildly betrayed tone, not pleased she didn't know this.
"She didn't tell us!" Toby said as Foxy grunted in surprise, squinted eyes never leaving Felix.
Ruby glanced at them, "Is there a reason she didn't?" At Mangle's confused look she looked back at the kids.
Ginny seemed to understand what Ruby was asking. She grit her teeth and shook her head, all while glaring at Ruby. "It wasn't Hedy's birthday. When we died."
"At least, we think so," Felix muttered.
Spring shifted uncomfortably but didn't say anything.
Puppet glanced at him and spoke up. "It was your birthday party, Cheryl," he reminded her.
"Oh...," Cheryl mumbled, resigned.
"Point is," Benji said stiffly. "We wanted to do something for Hedy...but..." he trailed off into a frown.
Felix grunted. "We...need your...help." He spat the word like it tasted terrible, his pride not standing up well. He glanced up at Foxy with hatred before he caught himself and forced his eyes to the floor.
Ruby thought for a moment and crossed her arms, "Throwing a party isn't going to make her, or any of us, forgive you." It was cruel, but she had to bring it up if this was some ploy of theirs.
They continued to glare at her.
It was Ginny who spoke. "Yeah. But you know, we're not completely selfish. We want Purple Guy gone. Permanently. We still want night guards dead." Her eyes flashed at Goldy and for the briefest second the bear could almost swear she saw guilt in her tormentor's eyes. But it was gone almost immediately. "But at the very least, we want Hedy happy. You were stupid and wrong. We do want her to be happy."
Ruby raised a dubious eyebrow. She stood by her belief that they were purely selfish at this point. Ginny might be trying to convince not just them of that being wrong, but herself as well.
Ginny ignored her. "She never had an actual birthday party except with us. Her daddy always forgot, Jeremy went to the army after a couple of years, and she didn't have any other friends after us. That's not fair." She sniffed with a straight face. "Hedy, and us, are turning twenty-one this year. Except for Cheryl. She's the baby. She'll be twenty in November." She frowned and turned to Fredrick. "It was November wasn't it?"
Fredrick shrugged.
It was flat out weird hearing them admit they were so much older than they looked.
"But we're not going to do anything for me," Cheryl said sternly to the other ghosts, more like a plea.
"Yeah. No," Benji muttered. He made a face, "Er. Hedy said adults don't do birthdays really, but she's only had, like, six real ones, so she needs to catch up." He nodded definitively. It made sense to him.
Felix scowled defiantly. "We're still going to do...something...Even if you don't help us." He said it mockingly, almost daring them. He didn't believe Ruby and the bots would help them with anything. He ducked a bit as Ruby looked at him warningly. They couldn't sense anything off the teen but their memories meant that they were keeping up a healthy amount of respect for what she could do now.
"Well, I want to sing Happy Birthday to Hedy," Mangle snorted. "Nothing to do with what you want." Mangle wasn't overtly trying to be mean, even if the kids deserved it. She was irritated and in her no-mouth-filter stage.
Benji winced a little but stifled it.
Ruby let out a mildly exasperated sigh. The Originals were giving her an odd look but none of the others knew why.
"Right, you kids are so fricking weird." She rubbed her forehead and ignored the confused looks she got in return. "Does Hedy want a birthday party?"
That question...that confused them.
"What do you mean?" Mangle actually seemed offended. "Of course she'd want a birthday. Why wouldn't she?"
Toby nodded. "Yeah, we should give her an awesome birthday."
Bonnie and Foxy exchanged a knowing look while Ruby grit her teeth before answering.
"You don't think maybe birthdays have been soured for her?"
She just received blank looks back. The Toys looked completely lost and mildly angry.
"If you don't want to throw Hedy a party then you don't have to. We'll do it." Teddy frowned and crossed his arms. They'd all practically forgotten about the ghosts.
"Birthdays are what we do a lot of the time." Chi added, glaring at Ruby.
The teen growled and threw her hands up in the air. "Like talking to children," she muttered. "Hedy was almost killed at a birthday party. Don't you think that maybe they bring up bad memories?"
The Toys almost immediately dismissed the idea. There wasn't anyone who didn't like a birthday party and they told her that.
Ruby gave up, looking surprisingly close to losing her temper despite the pretty mild topic. She stormed off before she actually did lose it.
Foxy sighed, drawing everyone's attention to him.
The Originals didn't look surprised by what just happened.
"What's her problem?" Mangle said, annoyed by the teen's apparent refusal to throw Hedy a party.
"Ruby doesn't like birthday parties." Bonnie shrugged.
"What? That's rubbish. She's always playing with the birthday kids if she's there when a party is happening," Mangle denied.
"To be more specific, Ruby hates her own birthday. She's trying to think of this from Hedy's point of view," Freddy tried to explain.
"She hates her birthday?" Toby gave them a clear 'I don't believe you' look. "Why would she hate her birthday?"
"Cause her parents died on the way back from her tenth birthday here," Foxy snapped, irritable about the whole conversation and already wanting to follow Ruby to check on her.
Mangle faltered for a moment. "Ah." The concept that anyone could dislike a birthday party for any reason conflicted with the news. She blamed her programming. But she wasn't stupid.
Toby, however. "But..!"
Mangle automatically clamped a hand over the idiot's snout and looked at him, "Really?"
Toby stiffened at the look in her eyes. "Let go," he whined, muffled.
Mangle complied and looked up, shifting on her feet. "Well, maybe Hedy isn't as upset about hers."
"Why would she be?" Cheryl said. "It was my birthday, not hers." Bitterness bled into her voice, no surprise.
Teddy looked a bit annoyed and impatient. "Exactly. Come on! I'll go get the decorations."
Mangle sighed. He was supposed to send her or Toby for supplies while he organized the stuff.
"Wait for me!" BB shouted, ignoring Hedy's orders not to strain his day-old new voice box (that he was so incredibly excited to have fixed). It really didn't take Hedy too long to find the parts he needed. His voice sounded mostly the same, just a little more "computerized" because he didn't have fifteen years to run the speech synthesis code through the equipment. Hedy wasn't even completely sure how a voice could be "broken in" like that. For now she had to pick and choose what she questioned about the bots' mechanics.
Mangle was slightly jealous but that was dampened by her relief that BB didn't have to go through what she did for very long. She was probably going to regret that as soon as BB was back to his old annoying self.
A moment later, BB popped his head back in. "What color balloons?"
The kids were still standing there, unsure if they actually got an answer or not.
Fredrick shared a glance with Ginny. "Light green?"
"Not right now," Benji said. "Pink. Like, magenta pink."
"And yellow," Ginny added.
"Are you sure about yellow?" Spring suddenly spoke up, nervously.
The kids looked at him for the first time. They hated looking at him.
Benji scowled. "Yellow's okay for her. Not purple, though."
"I'm going to make a cake!" Chi chirped, missing their awkwardness in her excitement.
Chica shot the younger chicken a look. "After you burnt last week's?"
Chi frowned at her. "It was an accident," she whined.
Chica sighed. "Come on," she said heading toward the kitchen, Chi trailing behind, a bit insulted.
Goldy mumbled something then spoke, "Mangle."
"Hmm?"
The bear shared a glance with the remaining Originals.
Foxy grimaced and shrugged.
"Don't be disappointed if Hedy doesn't like it, okay?" Goldy said, "Make sure you tell the others too? It wouldn't be your fault. But Ruby might be right about Hedy not liking parties." She pointedly looked at Toby too.
Toby opened his mouth to argue, but Goldy's look stifled whatever he wanted to say.
"Okay," he mumbled, slightly dejectedly.
"Sure..." Mangle added hesitantly.
Ruby stayed out of their way while they prepared the party. She didn't try and discourage it but she didn't do anything to help either. Freddy helped organise everyone so it didn't get out of control and Goldy helped with decorations (a bot on a ladder would be disastrous). Chica was already involved in the food side of things with Chi. Spring ended up staying near Ruby, still finding comfort from the fact that Michael didn't dare show up around her. Bonnie and Foxy stayed out of everyone's way and tried to figure out if Ruby was bothered by the party or was just worried about Hedy's reaction to it.
Hedy sent a text that she was on her way when midnight was close.
"Hedy's coming," Ruby said. She stared at her phone with a squint. "Mike's with her for some reason. Guess he's staying the night." She shrugged. "Again."
"He works the night shift with you and the mechanic," Foxy reminded dryly for the umpteenth time.
"That doesn't mean he's got to come every night," she whined. "Ugh, fake night guard."
"Ooh yay!" Mangle snickered with a laugh as Chi yelped and hurried to finish her cake.
"Ugh," Teddy complained. "If he breaks something again..."
Mangle snorted. "Aw. He just has bad luck."
"No! Bad luck and he'd be dead already," Teddy said, pointing a party hat at Mangle harshly. "He's got good luck. Really good luck. He's just a klutz."
"You're just mad he messed up your system in the storage room," Freddy said, amused as he put away the extra decorations with Goldy.
"I spent an hour cleaning up in there!"
Freddy just laughed. "You could have left it for the cleaners, Teddy," he chuckled.
Teddy glared and ignored the logic, "How does someone knock down all the shelves!?"
"He was climbing them to reach something for Hedy," Spring said with a tiny smile. "One of the staff forgot to leave her tools on a lower shelf when they had to move something out of the way."
"Jeremy put a ladder in there!" Teddy said.
"Just be glad I didn't store my glitter bombs in there. Now that would have made a mess." Ruby snickered, sitting on a table as she watched them.
She could tell somewhere in the back of her mind that the building was excited about the party but she wasn't as in tune with it as Hedy was.
Freddy shuddered at that image.
"You promised that you'd never let him get a hold of your glitter bombs." He pointed out with a slightly pleading note in his voice.
"Yeah yeah I remember."
"...and the dog said, 'I came to find the man who shot my paw'," Mike finished his joke with a stupid grin.
Hedy immediately recognized something was different when she came through the door.
Mike noticed her pause. "Hedy? Okay, not my best but I thought I'd at least get a pity laugh."
Hedy snorted with a small smile but continued to look around distractedly.
"What's wrong?" Mike lowered his voice as he closed the door behind them.
"Not sure," Hedy said. "I don't think anything is...wrong. Just...bear with me for a second. It's like the building is...hiding?"
Mike sputtered, confused. "Hiding?" He looked around. They were in the building. "Like 'scared' hiding?" he asked worriedly.
"No. Just hiding," Hedy said. It wasn't that she really felt something was off, more like she didn't. It was as if the building was stifling itself so that she couldn't feel it. Or at least, couldn't feel it as strongly as usual. She tentatively reached out, looking for the kids and was a little worried when they gave the equivalent of a little shriek and recoiled.
She hummed and started forward, Mike following.
There was no way the others didn't hear the door opening, but the main room was dark, which freaked them out.
"Guys?" Hedy questioned. She'd at least be able to see the bots' eyelights.
Multiple sets of colored eyes lit up in the darkness (blues, pinks, whites, yellows, orange, purple) moments before the lights turned on.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"
"Whatthef-!" Mike yelped as Hedy did the same. Ah, well-trained reflexes.
She gaped at the room. Streamers, balloons, a cake. Everyone.
"Oh f-. W-wha-" she sputtered. Her eyes widened. "Oh...right..." That was the wrong thing to say as the Toys suddenly looked crushed and the Originals sighed. She noticed the kids too, hovering far from everyone else. They seemed confused.
"You don't like it," Toby said, upset and disappointed while Ruby quietly looked resigned.
"No. NO!" Hedy laughed weakly, glancing around at the room a little uncomfortably. "I'm just..." She smiled sheepishly. "I kinda forgot..."
"You what?!" Mangle said horrified. She darted to Hedy and put her hands on each of the chair's armrests. She got in Hedy's face, turning her snout slightly to properly glare at her friend.
Ruby couldn't help snickering at the weird sight.
"Hedy. Don't you dare tell me you forgot your own birthday?!"
Hedy turned red in the face and pushed Mangle's face away by the snout. "Uh...maaaaybe?"
The Toys seemed aghast.
"No way," Teddy said.
"It's your birthday?" Mike wondered quietly, mostly to himself.
Hedy shook her head, "Wait a second. How the heck did you know?!"
"NO! I'm not done," Mangle scolded. "How do you forget your own birthday?!"
"Uh..." Hedy shrugged. "Give me a break. I never did anything for it. Not a fan of parties. This looks... amazing though." A little smile cracked her mouth at the thoughtfulness. "But seriously, h-how did you...?"
Ruby pointed at the ghosts. "They remembered it was your birthday."
The teen was leaning against the wall, present but strangely distant from the actual party.
Hedy's expression noticeably dropped when she glanced at the kids and they flinched. She wiped the stare and looked back at the others, ignoring the kids now.
"The Toys and them mostly did it. With Freddy, Chica and Goldy helping out."
She was studying Hedy like she hadn't in a long time. The last time she looked at her like that the teen had been staring her down at their first meeting and wondering if she was a threat to her bots. It was her intense focus look. Foxy and Bonnie were hovering by her which meant they were worried that something was going to upset their human sister.
"I can't believe you actually forgot your birthday." Goldy wasn't horrified like the Toys, she looked mostly amused. "Isn't that only supposed to happen when you pass forty? Are you feeling old Hedy?"
When the bear spoke like that it reminded them that she wasn't as tied to her programming as everyone else. Since she didn't have any coding or circuits anymore.
Foxy snickered at the comment while Freddy gave her a scolding look.
Hedy whined, "Oh shut up." She facepalmed, clearly embarrassed. "It's not like you remember yours."
"Well, I don't have to. I don't really have a birthday," Goldy shot back with a snicker. Her eyes lit up mischievously. "February 18th, by the way."
Hedy groaned with her argument dramatically pulled out from underneath her on two different levels. "That when you turned on?"
"Yep," Goldy grinned.
"December 25th," Puppet lightly scoffed in amusement.
"October 5th," Mangle snickered.
Freddy mumbled something with a squint at Ruby but Hedy couldn't hear the apparent date.
"All right! I get it!" Hedy said, deciding to muse over the bots knowing when they "woke up" another time.
"Wait wait," Ruby spun to look at Puppet. "You're trying to tell me the robot grinch counts as a Christmas present?!"
"Brief lapse in judgement. I should not have said that." Puppet eyed her warily.
"I didn't get you anything," Mike said dejectedly, missing the revelations as he stared at Hedy.
"Mike," Hedy scolded. "Please, you don't have too." She looked at the ghosts. She stared for a moment.
They just fidgeted.
Ruby smiled slightly as the bots teased Hedy but stayed mostly out of the conversation. Birthdays...She could handle little kids' birthday parties but this was new territory for her.
Goldy teleported between Hedy and Mike, giving the poor man a near heart attack. Goldy had been a lot more cheerful since everyone's repairs had moved along, especially Spring's.
"Well go and enjoy your party! The Toys worked really hard to make a nice one for you even though none of us knew what adults do at parties and Ruby was useless."
The teen stuck her tongue out at Goldy but didn't seem offended. She was as in the dark on this as they were.
"Oof," Mike chuckled awkwardly and glanced at Hedy as she followed an excited Chi with a smile. "How old?"
"Twenty-one," she said as Mike cracked up at the picture that was produced. He couldn't imagine the animatronics putting together a twenty-first birthday like he had.
Hedy guessed what he found funny. "Yeah. Uh. Trust me. You guys probably couldn't pull off a 'usual' party for an adult of my age if you tried." She suddenly froze and slapped a hand to her forehead.
"What?" Teddy asked, concerned.
Hedy groaned. "Oh no. Rena and Sarah were trying to convince me to skip work today. They wanted to go to a local bar but I kept saying no. I thought it was weird how they kept asking but didn't connect the dots..."
"A bar?...Like... with...al-co-hol," Mangle said. She blinked. Weird. She knew the word but she had never said it before. "Ew. Why?"
Hedy moaned as she explained. "I'm old enough to legally drink 'grown-up juice'," she snorted. "The drinking age is eighteen, but It's kind of a thing with some of the people I know to go get drunk on their twenty-first anyway."
"What? No," Freddy grunted. Alcohol was completely banned from the pizzeria. They caught parents bringing in the stuff maybe...twice?
"Ugh. Sarah knows my birthday. They probably were planning something. I'll have to apologize tomorrow. Probably dodged a bullet." She shook her head. "Alright. Can't worry about that now. Cake me."
"Pfft," Toby snorted at her demand. Adults were weird. Even Hedy.
"I just can't imagine you drunk." Ruby admitted with a smirk. "You're too...responsible for that."
Foxy snickered, being the only one that wasn't completely against the idea of alcohol. That was all purely thanks to Ruby showing him the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and all he knew about was rum.
Chica pulled a face and changed the topic back to the cake. "Chi did most of it. I just made sure she didn't rush it again." The only reason Chi tended to burn her cooking was her lack of patience. Otherwise she was a great cook.
"It looks great," Hedy said, earning a proud smile from Chi.
"We got one of the pinatas out too," Teddy said as Chi cut Hedy a huge slice before doing the same for Mike and Ruby.
Foxy eyed it, a little itch reminding him of Ruby's sugar rushes. He mentally braced himself but didn't say anything.
"Ooh, fancy," Hedy chuckled. "I was in the mood for cheap, off-brand candy."
"Nope!" Toby said, grinning. "I found the employee stash in the break room."
"I told you where it was," Puppet corrected, before sinking down, not wanting to admit he actually helped.
"Ah man..." Mike sighed. He only found the stash recently when one of the cleaners told him about it and warned him not to tell Ruby or the bots under any circumstances.
There was practically a cartoon whip sound effect as Ruby's head snapped around to them.
"What?! There was a secret candy stash? And I didn't know about it?!" she sounded both outraged and whiny.
Foxy blinked in surprise. "There's a place in this building you DON'T know about?" he sounded honestly surprised.
Goldy looked thoughtful for a moment. "What's to bet the building hid it so that we didn't all have to deal with a sugar high Ruby?"
The teen glared at them in offence before purposefully taking a big bite of cake and silently swearing that she was going to get so hyper she'd give them a phobia of sugar rushes. This betrayal deserved nothing less.
Hedy stared in a mild bit of fear as she took her own bite. It was delicious, by the way. "Ruby..." she warned.
"What?" Ruby said through a gross mouthful of cake. "I can't hear you over the sound of sugar rushing to my brain." She squinted vindictively.
Benji really tried not to snicker and bit his sleeve to stifle it as he came to stand next to Hedy.
Felix glared at him.
"Do I have enough time to run?" Mike muttered.
"Oh no," Chica scolded. "You're staying right here, sweetie."
Hedy laughed at Mike's defeated face.
They were in the middle of a game of charades (which Mangle murdered them at, to no surprise) when the beeping alarm of the front door's motion sensor went off on Ruby's tablet.
Hedy installed the sensors for the entrance doors a while ago so that Ruby would always know if someone was outside.
Ruby, frosting covered fork hanging out of her mouth, clicked on the camera and frowned.
There was a group of six people outside, all young adults. It had been a while but she recognized Rena and Sarah, Hedy's housemates. There were three guys and another woman she didn't recognize.
"Hedy." She spoke around the fork. "Your housemates are here. With others."
She passed the tablet over to her and stabbed her fork into the cake slice she was busy with. Luckily she hadn't gotten too far into her sugar rush plan yet so she was still sane.
Well, as sane as usual.
Goldy hovered above Hedy as she looked at the tablet as well. She was nosey because she could get away with it.
Hedy stiffened and squinted at the feed. She pursed her lips as she noticed the time. "Well...I can't say they're not dedicated..." she muttered. She watched as Rena took out her phone. Moments later, her own phone started ringing but she ignored it. The whole group outside started jumping up and down, waving at the camera they noticed.
"Who are they?" Goldy asked.
"Classmates. Friends of mine," Hedy said. Her phone rang again and she picked it up this time.
"Come on Heds! We know you're in there!"
"Rena, what do you think you're doing?" Hedy scolded. "I'm...working. "
"Aw come on, Hedy," one of the guys said, taking the phone. "Let's have a little fun! You got to be bored out of your mind with this freak job."
Hedy bristled a bit and Ruby stiffened.
"It's your birthday, girl," Sarah said, interrupting the guy, "At least come say hi?"
"We playing possum?" Mangle complained, already getting up and heading toward the stage. The Toys looked disappointed at the interruption.
Hedy didn't answer for a minute. She sighed. "I'll handle it. They can wait until tomorrow if they want my attention.
"Hey, guys! The doors unlocked," someone said over the phone.
Hedy barely heard Rena try to stop them but the call stopped abruptly.
Ruby's head shot up as she heard that. Her head whipped around to glare at Hedy. "You didn't lock up."
"Oops..." Mike winced. He was the last one in but was worried about Hedy at the time.
Hedy shot him a little glare. "Stage," she warned simply with a tight voice.
The animatronics all dropped what they were doing and bolted to their places on the respective stages. Goldy and the kids disappeared. Spring looked lost but Goldy reappeared and took his arm, teleporting the both of them out of the room. Puppet dived for his box.
After a moment's thought, he kept his box open and stood up, freezing in place.
That was usually the rule when it came to strangers. Don't let them know they were alive at first. They could never guess how normal people would react and it was usually better not to risk it until they had a better understanding of the situation. The staff was okay, as the building somehow made the whole self-awareness thing seem normal. The occasional emergency responder was freaked out but nothing bad had happened with them yet. Probably the building messing with minds again. Parents thought they were well programmed. Kids...well kids were kids.
"Yep...still creepy when you do that..." Mike said, staring at the animatronics.
Mangle broke her stiff robotic statue-ness to wink at him, before freezing again.
Ruby stood up, already looking angry. The Originals were reminded of that time that those teenagers broke in. She grabbed Betty and stalked to the front room where the group was loudly entering.
"What the hell are you doing?" she snapped, drawing the attention of the group to her.
"Oh no. I forgot about the crazy girl." one of Hedy's housemates groaned. She didn't know which one.
"You're trespassing. I can legally call the cops and get you all arrested." Ruby crossed her arms, gripping Betty tightly so the weapon was in clear view.
Two of these people knew that she wasn't just some kid to be taken lightly but the rest didn't so she wanted to make sure they could see she was armed, kinda. Mike followed after Ruby quickly but stayed a distance away. If Ruby was mad enough to actually start swinging Betty he did not want to be in hitting range.
"Hey, kid it's cool!" one of the guys, a tall man with glasses and a mop of light brown hair said with a grin. "We're friends with Hedy, the..uh." He snorted, "The mechanic."
"Hi Hedy!" hollered the other woman from the back of the group. Alex may have been studious, but there was no way she would have missed Hedy's 21st.
"Duude...what's a kid doing here?" another, shorter, guy said, throwing an arm around the blonde housemate. "Oh hey." He nodded at Mike, who just frowned at the guy in confusion. He didn't know these people.
Sarah winced at her boyfriend. "Uh...H-hedy?" she called. She and Rena had learned the hard way to be wary of Ruby and right now she looked pissed.
Hedy came around the corner and glared at them.
"Get out," she said shortly, sharing a glance with Ruby.
That actually seemed to shock them.
A laugh bubbled up from the brunette man's mouth. "What? Hedy, babe, we just wanted to visit. You ditched us tonight. We had this whole surprise party thing planned out at Bannon's and you just bailed?"
"I didn't know it was for me, Sullivan," Hedy snapped, twitching at him calling her 'babe'. "Okay? Look, guys. We're serious about trespassers. You can't be in here."
"Oooh. We gonna get murdered or something?" Sullivan snickered. "Does Casper want to play?"
"Dude, come on," the second man mumbled. "This place is freaking haunted."
Sullivan rolled his eyes but dropped his smile. He sighed and pinched his nose, but his voice was almost sympathetic. "Dave, I still can't believe you actually think ghosts are real." He looked at Hedy. "Heds you've been here, like, months. With this night shift crap too. Have you seen ghosts?" He asked with tired raised eyebrows like he already knew she was going to back him up.
Hedy didn't even get a chance to answer.
"If Hedy hasn't seen anything weird here, no one has," Sullivan said.
The third guy was fidgeting nervously. "Hedy, can't you...ya know...play hooky once?" He glanced at Ruby in confusion. He actually didn't seem keen on being there. "You're only twenty-one once, ya know..." He blinked at Ruby. "She can cover for you. Can't you?"
"Wow, you guys love to just talk, don't you?" Mike observed. They just carried on part of a conversation without any input from Ruby, Hedy, or him.
Ruby's patience lasted surprisingly long and she threw Mike an amused smirk for his comment.
"Okay, number one, I'm the night guard. If you can't tell the difference between a night guard and a mechanic then you're stupider than you look. I can't cover for her because if I had to do her job I'd likely electrocute myself." those that knew her could tell that she was mad. Probably a combination of being talked down to, the blatant trespassing and the fact that Hedy's party had been rudely interrupted. She might not care about birthday parties but she was still annoyed they interrupted Hedy's. "Number two, do you understand what 'no' means? Hedy told you to first get out, then told you she's not interested and you're still trying to get her to ditch her job. Three, being friends of Hedy's does not mean you can trespass. You illegally entered the premises during closed hours without an invitation. I would have absolutely no problem calling the cops on your idiot asses. And finally, call me a kid again and I will brain you so hard with this bat that you won't even remember your own name. And I will get away with it too because, like I said earlier, you are trespassing. And I'm just a teenager acting in self defence."
She glared at them, now tapping Betty against her leg impatiently as she waited for their reactions. In her experience college boys did not like it when teens talked like that to them so she was almost hoping that they'd pick a fight.
She was also so tempted to summon Goldy through the tablet after that talk of ghosts.
She was kind of right about the boys.
Sullivan stiffened. "Who the hell do you think..."
"Sullivan," Hedy snapped, casting a side look at Ruby for egging them on. "This is Ruby. She's technically one of my bosses, the night guard, and really will floor you if you push her. Do. Not." She leveled a glare with her friends but spoke to her coworkers. "Mike. Ruby. This is Sullivan, David, Django, and Alex. Ruby, you've already met Rena and Sarah."
"And who are you," Sullivan stared at Mike oddly, glancing between him and Hedy.
"Mike."
"And what're you?"
"Just Mike...the electrician," he shrugged. "Don't worry about me beating you up though." He gestured at Ruby.
Dave stepped in front of Sullivan and spoke to Ruby. "Look, we really don't want any trouble." He said, putting his hands up. "Hedy just...hasn't had a chance to hang out with us in a while. It's her birthday and we were just hoping to do something special for her."
"That's sweet, Dave," Hedy said, a little less short with him. "But you're going about it wrong. I'm working. We can do something tomorrow."
The woman Ruby hadn't met spoke up with a sigh. "Come on, you say that but you literally don't do anything else but..." she held up her fingers. "Go to class, sleep, then spend all night here. We're worried about you, Hedy, we just want you to have some fun. Aren't your friends allowed to worry about you?" She looked to Hedy for a response but then froze and looked behind her friend as something caught her attention. She thought she heard someone speaking. "How many of you work at night?"
"Just us..." Hedy said. She forgot BB had gone to refill on helium and probably walked into the room all confused why everyone was playing statue.
"Then what..." Alex's eyes suddenly widened in excitement and she suddenly bolted past them with a squeak.
"ALEXANDRIA!" Hedy yelled after her.
Ruby was after her like a shot, the newcomers surprised at how quickly she'd moved. When they all reached the doorway they saw the short teen standing between Alex and an impressive amount of robots. Ruby was very much in the older girl's personal space as she kept her away from the bots.
"Listen lady, I'm being serious here. You try to touch one of those bots and I'll break your fingers." Ruby hissed.
Hedy could sense the building's unease about the situation and got the feeling that the doors to the rest of the building had just locked. At least Spring wasn't here. The mechanics would have probably tried to take a look at the out of order bot too.
The Originals were all on the main stage, including Foxy who hadn't wanted to be as far as Pirate's cove with strangers in the building. The Toys were on the secondary stage that had been added in the main room instead of their own stage in their area of the building. BB was off to the side of the room, clearly having frozen there when he realised what was happening. Puppet's box was next to the door and he kind of creeped a few of them out with the way he was staring at them while apparently offline.
Hedy recognised the slightest twitches from the bots that gave away that they weren't really offline. Only she and Ruby could tell the difference between them faking it and actually being off. Mike hadn't been around enough yet. The glint in Foxy's eyes and the twitch of Bonnie's ears, the ever so slight shift of Mangle's weight and the intense stare from Puppet gave them away from Hedy's perspective.
If the bots thought the visitors were a threat to the girls they wouldn't hesitate to break the act.
Alex couldn't get past Ruby but she tried to lean around to better study the Originals. She barely seemed to hear Ruby to Hedy's dismay.
"Holy shit!" She looked at Hedy with a childish curiosity in her eyes. "I thought they were the kind that are attached to the floor! Like those rides at Disney World. This is amazing, Heds! Why haven't you told me how advanced they are? Can I come during the day to look at them working? Pleeeeaase? I'll buy you that chocolate you love!"
"Alex, back up," Hedy said.
"Yeah, Alex," Sullivan chucked. "I think that one's giving you the stink eye," he joked. His grin faltered as he looked at Foxy's eye. It really did look like it was staring at Alex, though he still thought the colored glass was blank. "Huh...that hook looks kind of...sharp..."
"How good is their natural language processing? I know they speak but is it just pre-recorded or is it concatenative synthesis? Ooh and what about their physical stuff, what grade are the structural components?" Alex rambled, "Is it steel? No, that's too heavy. Titanium! Ooh. What about the new carbon alloys?"
"Titanium CP1. Grade 5," Hedy snapped.
"They use that in spaceships!"
"I know. Step back, Alex," Hedy said, rolling up. She harshly grabbed Alex's sleeve and pulled her away from Ruby who looked awfully close to attacking.
Dave muttered. "How the frick does this place afford that?" He eyed Puppet and when he thought no one was watching, flipped a finger at the creepy thing.
Sullivan frowned. "Still. Can't believe you turned down a job designing spacecraft to poke around with these things."
"Sullivan, I'm serious. Shut your mouth."
He glanced at her, confused at the hostility. "It just.. Didn't seem like you, Hedy," he said kindly. "That was your dream job, not some cheap pizza joint. You don't even like kids."
"Nah," Alex laughed, yanking her arm away from Hedy. "NASA wouldn't let Hedy tear things apart like she likes too." She nudged Hedy, completely missing her terrified look. "I bet you can do whatever you want with these guys. Hey, maybe smaller contract jobs are the way to go!" She shifted a bit though, still not noticing Hedy. "Oh that reminds me, Heds. I meant to ask what you thought earlier but I got this job offer. Not sure about it though-"
"I still think it sounds sketchy!" Sullivan cut in.
"Shut up, Sully," Alex said lightly as she turned back to Hedy but frowned slightly as the mechanic glared at her. "It pays well and it's an AI thing, it sounds so cool, right up my alley. But it's kinda far away and the dude who called me was kinda wei-"
"Yeah sure!" Hedy harshly cut in.
Alex shut her mouth at the irritated snap.
"If it sounds interesting to you, just go for it. You can always quit if the guy's trying to scam you, now can you please leave," Hedy freaked, glancing at the Originals.
Alex looked a little more unsure at Hedy's harshness but she shot Hedy a smile and unwisely decided to keep up the teasing.
"Well thanks for helping me decide!" she laughed, before turning back the others, determined that Hedy was going to enjoy herself even if they had to fight tooth and nail. "Hey, Sarah! Remember when Hedy took apart your computer just because she could and she was bored? You just wanted her to change the battery. Even I didn't know a computer could be in so many pieces," Alex continued, wrongly thinking Hedy was just being modest about her skills.
A snarl ripped from Ruby's throat, making Hedy's housemates take a couple steps back. They knew that Ruby was an evil prankster but right now she looked downright vicious. Like she would physically attack the next one to get too close to the bots.
Hedy saw the panic flicker through Bonnie's eyes. The fear. Not of her. Of the topic and the memories it was bringing back. At least she hoped it wasn't of her.
Foxy's posture shifted, growing more aggressive in response to Ruby's agitation. His teeth were showing now in a silent snarl. They weren't before.
Puppet's gaze was locked on the idiot who'd flipped him off and he seriously considered just jumping at the man. He wouldn't kill him. Making him scream would be worth Hedy's anger.
Hedy was the only one seeing the warning signs. Ruby was holding herself back by a thread. So was Foxy. Bonnie might be close to a panic attack. Mangle didn't like them ignoring Hedy and her frustration was bleeding into her eyes, making them glow. Puppet was a twitch away from leaping at Dave.
Hedy's eyes flicked to a bag Rena was quietly holding.
Rena didn't understand what was going on, but she knew Ruby was crazy and she, Sarah, and Sullivan were close enough to Hedy to see she was hurt. For some reason. Couldn't for the life of them figure out why and it was a little worrying.
"Whatcha got there?" Hedy suddenly spoke up, gesturing to the bag.
Rena blinked and looked down. "Oh..uh..we stopped by the liquor store. Since you were, you know, not coming to Bannon's." She shrugged, lifting the bag a bit. "Birthday present. Whiskey. Hoping to have a few drinks..."
"What do you mean 'hoping'?" Alex snickered. "I'm having a drink no matter who else is. Although I do implore you, Hedy. I'll beg on my knees if you want?" She grinned, totally serious. Her dignity in front of friends had been lost long ago.
Hedy grunted, a plan to get them out without anyone getting hurt or traumatized coming to mind. She hated it. She ran her hand down her face. "Okay. How about this? One drink then you guys leave. Deal?" She shifted at saying that but flinched at a sudden headache.
Crap. It wasn't enough.
"Pfft. Please," Dave said, not even noticing the walls rattling just a teeny tiny bit.
"It's your twenty-first Hedy!" Alex laughed. "You know the rules..." she almost sang.
Oh no, don't mention "rules"... Hedy mentally groaned.
"You've got to get plastered!"
Sullivan snorted, "How's this? We'll leave when we finish the whole bottle."
"Half. And no touching the animatronics," she snapped.
"Oh come on..."
"NO. Touching. The. Animatronics," Hedy wasn't going to budge.
"Alright jeez!" Alex complained, fully intending to check out one or two anyway. Hedy couldn't possibly expect her to keep her promise.
Hedy didn't need to, but she wasn't about to tell them that.
Ruby's gaze was zeroed in on Hedy. It was the first time a deal was being made since she'd become more sensitive to the building after her coma. It was weird. She'd always instinctively known how to make the deals fair. Now she could feel the deal taking shape around them, binding them to it.
Whether these idiots knew it or not.